An Open Letter to Bill Hyder and the Token and Medal Society

Your
article in the January/February 2019 issue of the Token and Medal Society’s TAMS
Journal (“Merchant Token Ephemera From Wiley, Kansas”) makes me feel like
I’ve been asleep for the past 15 years as a writer and researcher.

Thanks
a lot! Just when I was starting to feel like I knew something about
numismatics.

Seriously,
though—this excellent article should be required reading for everyone who
collects U.S. coins, especially those of the 1700s to mid-1900s. The concepts
you spell out are vital to understanding American coins and paper money,
day-to-day commerce, credit, and what life was like for millions of Americans
for many generations.

The
real-life case studies you present, and sharing interesting stories from your
own family history, make it a fun read as well as educational.

“As
we move further away in time from firsthand experience with the use of trade
tokens,” you write, “we lose touch with the mechanics of their use in local
economies.” If coin collectors don’t have that knowledge, they’re missing a big
piece in the puzzle of American numismatics.

This
reminds me of conversations I had with Ken Bressett years ago. We were
struggling to make room in the Red Book for listings of the Mint’s
expanding programs of commemoratives, silver, gold, and platinum bullion, and
other modern coins. Near desperation, I was tempted to dramatically condense
the “Private and Territorial Gold” section. I’m embarrassed now, in retrospect,
that this was my reasoning: “How many people actively collect these pieces?
Hundreds? Maybe a thousand?” (out of the hundreds of thousands of
readers who buy a Red Book every year).

Ken
set me straight, reminding me that for a good amount of time, in a large
section of the United States (or what would eventually become part of the
Union), during a significant era of national expansion, these private and
territorial gold pieces were extremely important to American life—they were how
business got done.

Thus
it is with trade tokens. And your article, like Ken’s shared insight, is a
valuable reminder of, and education in, the huge importance of America’s
non-coin “coins.”

Thank
you for writing it, and thank you, as always, for sharing your wisdom.

Sincerely,

Dennis

P.S.
Anyone who wants to be inspired, learn what’s going on in the vast and
fascinating world of U.S. tokens and medals, and read great articles in the TAMS
Journal, can join the membership rolls of the Token and Medal Society at www.tokenandmedal.org.

Dennis
Tucker is the publisher of Whitman Publishing; numismatic specialist in the
Treasury Department’s Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee; and author of American Gold and Silver: U.S. Mint
Collector and Investor Coins and Medals, Bicentennial to Date. He is a past
governor of the Token and Medal Society.